36 G: EB. H. BARRETT-AAMILTON [suLY 
Probably the cows do not leave their pups until the latter are 
capable of moving about by themselves, and refuse to be controlled by 
their mothers. The young pups grow with great rapidity. At first 
they are very weak and feeble-looking, but they seem to feed a good 
deal during the first few days of their life, and already, on the 26th 
June at the South rookery, there was a distinct difference visible 
between the pups which had seen a week or ten days of life and the 
little thin new-born ones. By the 30th June, at the North rookery, 
a few of the little pups were independent enough to begin to collect 
together in little pods, and on the previous day I had seen one 
swimming in the shallow water on Kishotchnaya reef. <A fortnight 
later, on the 13th July, the pups lay outside the harems of the reef 
in black patches, giving the rookery quite a new appearance, and 
causing its outline to look very irregular. 
I think these little podding pups may fairly be taken as an indication 
of the time each mother stays on shore with her pup after its birth, as 
well as an index to the number of females on shore. I do not think 
any female left her pup until about the 29th June, and that it was not 
until ten or twelve days later that any appreciable number of them 
did so. I believe also that for some days after the female has thus 
parted from her pup for the first time she does not go to any distance 
from the rookery, but contents herself with short excursions to the 
outlying rocks, reefs, or kelp-patches, where she washes or plays away 
the hours, and probably also feeds. This is borne out by my observa- 
tions both at Kishotchnaya and the Reef as well as at the South 
rookery. 
At the latter rookery (from July 24 to 30, 1897) we could 
always account for so many seals that it is extremely unlikely that 
any great number of them travelled to a distance from the rookery in 
search of food. Yet that they were feeding I know for a fact, having 
on more than one occasion seen them spewing up undigested portions 
of their meals while on shore. Taking this fact into consideration, as 
well as the fact that seals are usually to be observed by vessels coasting 
between Nikoski to the south-west of Copper Island, when at a distance 
of from 3 to 10 miles from the shore, and that in that region fish are 
abundant, as evidenced by the abundance of birds, I believe that the 
nursing Fur Seal mother gets her food for some little time after the 
birth of her pup at no great distance from the shore, and only lengthens 
her excursions as the pup grows older. 
In the end, however, when at last she does leave her pup to travel 
to the distant feeding-grounds at sea, she remains there so long, either. 
sleeping or playing, that when she returns to the rookery her udder is 
distended with milk and her stomach empty. 
On these occasions the seal-mother very often finds a little ravenous 
and half-starved pup noisily awaiting her arrival and eagerly demand- 
ing his dinner from all the other mothers he meets. These, one and 
